Womart

Womart is a project initiated by Rebobinart, aimed at claiming the need to recognize femenine talent in visual arts, in general, and in street art (or art in public space), in particular. The lack of gender equality in the institutional circuits of visual arts reveals that there still exists a glass ceiling that prevents achieving real equality in terms of recognizing women professional artists. Womart was born in response to this reality, with the objective to make visible and acknowledge the artistic talent of women creators and to foster gender equality in all visual arts’ disciplines.

Rebobinart is a platform of urban art that believes in art as a tool for social and cultural dynamization of public space. Rebobinart encourages civic participation through street art as a tool to favour social cohesion. Art converts into a tool of community mediation, that allows to achieve a more committed citizenship, to connect different social groups, to deal with neighbourhood conflicts in a positive way. 

Rebobinart supports local women artists, offering them the opportunity to work professionally and to develop their careers. The association carries out projects and programs of social intervention through artistic creation. Some of the most outstanding projects are: Wallspot (a digital platform that manages spaces legally devoted to artistic interventions) and Ús Barcelona (a street art festival and public space that aims at giving new functions to unused urban spaces).

Rebobinart collaborates with different entities and develops projects that are in line with the aims of Womart, taking into account the specific context where the activity will be implemented. 

Examples of activities:

• Womart Jams (women artists make murals in the public space, it’s a moment of meeting and exhibition)
• Participatory activity with the women association in the neighbourhood of Trinitat Vella (dialogue with the territory and need of participatory action).
• Training activities through the “Lavadora” platform: e.g. training sessions for artists on topics like legal aspects, or artists giving masterclasses explaining how they arrived where they are.

Main results and impacts produced by the initiative on the selected MESOC crossover themes

• Gradual but noticeable increase in the number of women artists that book spaces to paint in the street through the Wallspot digital platform for managing “legal walls”.
   
• Fostering the professionalization of women urban artists through specific programs of technical and practical training.
   
• Media impact through local, national and international communication media. Exposure of the initiatives developed in the framework of the project through specialized and general media.
   
• Increased visibility of the work made by women muralists through the promotion (both online and offline) of their work made within the framework of the project. Development of concrete actions of visibility through video interviews and documentation images of the murals, that are later disseminated through Rebobinart channels, Wallspot and other media. 
   
• Increased collective awareness around the lack of gender equality in the urban art sector. The participation of the general public (18-60 yo, women and men) in several activities (conferences, live murals, Women Jams, etc.) recognizes the need to provide and generate spaces of creation for women artists.
   
• Fighting against macho attitudes and gender violence in the public space against women artists.
   
• Fostering an intercultural and inclusive discourse through artistic creation.
   
• Creation of communitarian projects in peripheral spaces of the city. We want to highlight the impact of the project in the Trinitat Vella neighbourhood, where we worked in several initiatives with women collectives in order to develop renovation and improvement actions in the public space, especially in those areas detected as not safe or masculinized. Starting from the collective creation of artistic murals by women, it was possible to create a space for exchange, with the aim of fostering the transformation of public space from a feminist and empowering vision.
   
• Transforming and improving the public space thanks to artistic murals made by women (some of them with the collaboration of a collective of women neighbours).

Elements that contributed to the generation of these impacts

Contextual and exogenous conditions:

• Receptive social context, open to feminine perspective
• Emerging importance of gender equality in a traditionally masculine art sector which is street art
• Sensitivity of public administration towards issues of gender equality
• Existence of private financing lines dedicated to cultural projects with gender perspective

Resources:

• Specific private funding for cultural activities with gender perspective (the Institut Català de Dones gave funds two years in a row)
• Support of the public administration through grants
• In-kind sponsorships (materials for painting)

Typology of programmes:

• Artistic action in public space
• Participatory program with women neighbours
• Support and visibility programme for women artists
• Festival of women creators
• Training programs (specific for street/urban arts)